Over at Smashing Magazine, an article was written called “25 Useful WYSIWYG Editors Reviewed” and any time the mention of WYSIWYG editors is made, there’s always the same old argument—you’re not a professional developer if you use a WYSIWYG editor. I always react the same when I see that comment being made—I get annoyed at such banal comments.
I am an admitted Dreamweaver user. What that doesn’t mean is that I’m not a professional. What it does mean is that is the tool I’ve chosen to use to code sites with. It also doesn’t mean I don’t know how to code by hand or that I don’t code by hand when using it. It doesn’t mean that I can’t develop standards-based sites or sites that validate when completed. It also means if I could find a program that offers split views, code completion, highlighting of code that will cause problems in browsers and their possible solutions and a new document that has the DOCTYPE, meta information and the opening and closing body and html tags, I’d jump on it. Oh and said program would have to be a Mac app. 
That said, below is a list that of what I consider needed to be a professional web designer/developer (in no particular order):
I’m sure there are many other skills I’ve left out that are needed to be a professional web designer/developer but none of them include the tools you use to accomplish the task. What kind of tool you use to apply those skills is unimportant—they are just that, tools. Anyone with the proper skill-set can use any tool to turn out a pristine end-product and that is what is most important in the scheme of things. Just because you may have the tools does not mean you have the skills and I’ve seen all too often people who cry the importance of tools are mostly lacking in skills.
My name’s Jen; I’m a cynical, sarcastic, ex-drummer who is fond of dark humor. I've held way too many factory & retail jobs but finally found my calling one Christmas holiday in a dark, musty basement. I am now a CSS & XHTML web standards looney and can be found daily—when I’m not at my Mac—at the local fair-trade coffee shop buying an iced-soy mocha no matter the temperature.
I am also the owner of Pop Stalin Design specializing in CSS & XHTML web design as well as custom WordPress themes.
Hello Jen,
I believe I was one of the ones you mention here who voiced an opinion that grated your nerves.
First, I would like to say this: The replies became horribly off-topic. I, myself, even fed into the debate which became a flame war that took place in the comment section. When you read the actual topic for the post, you see that it was aimed to pose solutions for your clients to use to update sites. By this token, I stand firmly by my opinion that Dreamweaver is by and large a terrible, terrible solution to allow your clients to update their sites.
That said, returning to where the comments headed, any application used is always down to one factor: a matter of preference. You can end up with the same end product whether you design in DW, FrontPage (Ack!) or VIM. The point that I think became heavily overlooked when dealing with this aspect of software, and one I wanted to stress more, is that for a lot of these people who claim to have “tamed” DW to make compliant code output, etc., it takes much more effort in the long run.
I have programmed and designed web sites for years, both privately and within a web design firm setting. I have used DW for many of these years, and have much experience with versions up to CS3. I have encountered many bugs and problems with all of them (much like most of the prior owner, Macromedia’s, applications) where software becomes buggy and bloated over time as they implement bug fixes in a backward way (usually overtop of a flawed application framework and code rather than rewritting the core of it).
My main point for these users is that for the few seemingly unique and useful aspects of DW you end up having to really fight the current and go against the grain of what much of DW is when, in fact, you could use many other applications (that happen to be free or much cheaper) that do these things natively and usually offer a wide variety of other features DW does not.
In the end, yes, it is about the end result, and that is where the designer makes all the difference. I can say, however, that almost every designer who works in DW I have ever met and spoken with happens to have much less experience and/or knowledge on what web design is really based upon (standards, usability/accessability, etc.) because they choose to approach their software as graphic artists, not web designers.
I hope this has helped calm the waters in our little tide pool.
Be well,
A
Hey Akiva, first off let me say that the tide pool wasn’t rippling that much. And I agree the topic got off the beaten path of the intended purpose of the post. However, my reply here has more to do with the attitudes of people, namely “Jimmy” in that thread, that claim “you can’t be a professional if you use anything but a text editor.” I’m not the most logical person in the world but to me that just doesn’t make much sense.
As far as Dreamweaver is concerned, I tend to underutilize most of the features available. I’m a big fan of it’s split view and use the program mostly as a text editor. The only code I let DW write for me is the header data. Everything else I write is in code view with the design view to see how the layout works. Like I said at Smashing Magazine and in this post, if I could find a program that offers the split view like DW does plus code completion I’d happily ditch the program but, alas, I have not. HyperEdit comes close but doesn’t have code completion—which I’ve gotten quite used to using DW.
I believe what bothers me the most on this topic, and maybe I didn’t make it clear enough in this post, is the superior attitude some people take on when it comes to using a tool and equating that with knowledge and skill. These are so on opposite sides of the spectrum that I find that when others don’t see that delineation it bothers me (admittedly more than it should).
Thanks for your thoughtful, well written comment, it’s most appreciated. And for the record, I would never, ever suggest a client use Dreamweaver to maintain a site. Of course, almost all of my clients choose to use WordPress as a CMS, so it’s not a real issue for me.
Hello Jen,
Thank you for your reply. I hadn’t really read most of the posts because, as you pointed it, it more or less became a pretty weak flame war.
That said, if you are considering looking around for other apps that may be better suited to your tastes and design flow, does Coda [http://www.panic.com/coda/] not fit your requirements? I seem to recall you are a Mac user, and judging from their site, it has all the features you look for.
Over all, I just wanted to take this opportunity to further explain my stance so I did not come off in the wrong way. I am happy to have had the chance to do so with a designer I respect.
To a future of efficiency in all that we do!
A
Yes, I am a Mac user.
I think I briefly checked into Coda but I’ll have to look further. I don’t think they have the split view though (if I recall correctly).
I appreciate being able to have a good debate on a topic and not get carried away with whether someone realizes the difference between a debate and a flame. You obviously know the difference.
Well, being another one of the people using Dreamweaver for coding, I think that above everything else, Dreamweaver’s convenience is the main reason why I use it. When I started off, I used nothing but text editors like NotePad (I had a PC back then). But, as I coded more and started to get jobs, I realized that although you can use a text editor, it doesn’t mean you have to or should.
When coding anything, time is a very important factor. Why spend much more time hammering it out on a plain text editor when you could get the same job done faster with tools that have syntax highlighting, code completion, or even automatic upload to ftp features? Using good tools is smart, not unprofessional. I think if someone uses only a text editor, they have either made a conscious decision to do so because of preference, they don’t know any better, or they just cannot get anything else.
Lastly, I agree it is definitely the end result that shows how good of a designer or coder you are. Good tools can help you get the work done faster or easier, but they can’t turn crap into gold. It’s the skill and talent of the person using them that shows through in the end.
That’s my little two cents.